USB Ports faulty

smithers_jones_2

Can anyone tell me why, when I try to transfer data from my memory stick or SD card to my P.C. I now get a message saying the media needs to be formatted

It never did this before and the memory sticks work fine on a laptop I have

Thanks

fwor

Do you have a different OS on the PC than the laptop? High capacity flash memory cards are often now formatted with a version of FAT that an older OS may not be able to understand.

smithers_jones_2

fwor

XP on my P.C.

Vista on the p.c.

But up until 1 week ago both memory sticks and SD card worked fine on P.C.

fwor

It's a strange one, but I don't think it can be a fault with the USB ports themselves, as at least they are being recognised as valid devices.

I'm not best placed to suggest other things to try, as I don't/won't use Vista - but it would be interesting to see what the laptop reports if you run chkdsk on one of the cards...

weegie.geek

What else do you have plugged in via USB? I'd unplug all but the bare essentials (mouse+keyboard) in case something's sucking more current than the usb ports can provide. A lot of older hardware was terrible for this.

smithers_jones_2

Thanks

But only my optical mouse is plugged in

weegie.geek

Ah, not so good then. Given them a good blow? There might be something inside that's bridging contacts, causing a short.

smithers_jones_2

Thanks again

But this did not work

All 3 removeable devices read the same message so it must be the P.C.

weegie.geek

Uninstall the usb hub etc in device manager and let them reinstall? Failing that, it sounds like the ports are jiggered.

's only a fiver for a PCI card I guess.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/108594

johnmc

I get this occasional. Depends how I access it.

I have a shortcut on my desktop. If I drag & drop onto the shortcut I get the message occasionally.

If I open the shortcut to view as a folder it's OK.

If I open the file and do "Save As" it's OK.

Mind you, it does it for floppies as well. I just came to the opinion that it needed the media to be opened before dragging to it, although that wouldn't explain "save as".

Just my two-penneth!

smithers_jones_2

Thanks but is it likely that all 4 ports would go faulty ?